Keeping ground surfaces, particularly roads and airport runways, free of ice has long been a major problem in geographical regions where temperatures drop below freezing. Over the years, many methods and apparatus have been developed and constructed to clear such ground surfaces of ice.
Some methods of clearing ground surfaces of ice include scarifying the ice, that is, cutting grooves into the ice to increase the surface area that is exposed to warming rays of the sun. Numerous devices and apparatus with rake attachments or cutter blades are known for scarifying or raking ground surfaces. U.S. Pat. No. 6,634,719 to Monroe is an example of such a method. However, in many cases, such methods do not provide the desired result quickly enough since the ice is not completely removed, but merely scarred, and the sun has to perform the remaining of the work.
Another method consists in melting the ice through a chemical reaction. Chemical methods of de-icing ground surfaces include spraying a de-icing fluid or scattering de-icing crystals or solids over the ice-covered surface. One common disadvantage of these two methods is that, as the ice melts, the water flows toward low-lying areas, entraining the de-icing chemicals with it. This effectively removes the de-icing chemicals from high-lying areas. Therefore, to gain efficiency, the chemical method needs to be combined with the scarifying method, which grooves tend to retain the chemicals. A consequent drawback of this resulting method is that, when the roads have a highly curved profile and scarifying is mandatory, it requires two vehicles to perform the method. Another drawback is that some chemicals, such as salt, do not perform properly when temperatures are too cold. Furthermore, when the ice melts and water runs on the side of the road or runway, the water transporting the chemicals is absorbed by the surrounding ground, which may be detrimental to the environment.
There is therefore a need for an improved ice-removing device that is capable of effectively removing the ice from a ground surface such as a road or a runway without using spraying chemicals that are possibly hazardous to the environment.